The U.S. Men’s Olympic Team suffered defeat in its final tune-up match before heading to Paris, France this July.
Marko Mitrovic’s squad lost 2-0 to Japan on Tuesday at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas. Shota Fujio and Mao Hosoya both scored goals for Japan, who had a comfortable evening against the Americans.
Bryan Reynolds was whistled for handball in the sixth minute and Fujio stepped up from the penalty spot to score for a 1-0 lead. Fujio sent goalkeeper Patrick Schulte the opposite way, propelling the visitors in front.
Japan would double its lead after the hour mark following Shunsike Mito’s interception of John Tolkin’s throw-in pass. Mito’s eventual pass into the box deflected off of Jonathan Tomkinson and Schulte, allowing Hosoya to tap in from four yards out.
Reynolds, Caleb Wiley, Walker Zimmerman, and Duncan McGuire were among the starters in the match. Taylor Booth, Griffin Yow, and Tanner Tessmann also featured for the Americans.
Venezia midfielder Gianluca Busio did not feature after injuring his ankle in the Italian side’s promotion playoffs earlier this month. His status remains unknown for the Olympics.
“Since we started this process eight months ago, this was, I would say, the lowest performance by far that we had,” Mitrovic said. “I strongly believe that this group can do much better than they showed today.”
“Obviously, it wasn’t the game that we wanted to end kind of this journey on going into the Olympics,” said American midfielder Paxten Aaronson. “The guys know that one game doesn’t define us.”
The Americans final roster for the tournament is due by July 3 and will max out at 18 players. Three of those 18 selections can be over the age of 23-years-old.
Hosts France will oppose the U.S. in both nations’ first match before the Americans also take on New Zealand and Guinea in group stage play.
Keep on saying Paxten needs to be the 10. It was the same type of play the senior side just played. Slow buildup out of the back, zero transition offense and stranding the striker on an island. Japan probably should of had more goals.
U23s played Japan back in October. Even though, we won 4-1, Japan showed some real athleticism. They were running all over the US and missing chances just like this match. Their squad was different than last nights squad. Luna struggled against them. USA had a different team than back in October also. This match the US had the larger players and were drawing fouls while falling on the ground against smaller players. Akin to flopping. (Frustrating to watch). There has to be an athletic component to go along soccer skills, which is foot/eye coordination with an object, in this sport a soccer or futbol. Japan is also a good example of a country dipping into its citizenry to get better athletic talent on the soccer field. Germany also. Die Mannscraf team polling shows that some Germans don’t like diversity. It is a sport at the end of the day. How many Japanese players have you seen with Afros, & extremely heavy tan’s? A whole bunch of Bobby Woods out there. Japan also shows up during the 100, 200, & relays during World Championships & Olympics in track. Japan also had an NBA 1st round draft pick a few years ago. He’s a Laker now. Japan looked more athletic & hungrier than the US. Missing talented players hurts, I agree. Long seasons in Europe for some of these players, fatigue & tired legs, you bet. With all that said, US has enough talent at this age group to show better than what we saw in this match.
Luna didn’t play against Japan last fall.
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Japan’s NT keeper is Zion Suzuki, he was born in Little Rock, Arkansas to a Ghanaian American father and Japanese mother. It looks like he will be on the Olympic team but he did not play last night. Joel Chima Fujita started all the Asian Cup U23 knockout rounds has a Nigerian father. Anrie Chase is a CB for Japan’s U23, and does in fact have an Afro (he did not play last night). Not sure any of those facts have anything to do with how Japan played.
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German national team members Rudiger, Tah, Musiala, Sane’, Gnabry, Nmecha all have at least one African parent, Gundogan, and Can are both of Turkish decent. Undaz is Kurdish which depending on who you ask is in Turkey or not. In the past of course Boatang, Oezil, and Klose were all on their cup winning team.
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It’s probably easier to get consistency and consensus among footballers in a country the size of California (Japan). I don’t know how much truth there is too it but their women’s teams always connected the small sized pitches of their large cities as building their technical ability. I’m sure someone with a stronger background in Japanese cultural norms could point to ways their culture shows up in their football.
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Rui Hatamuri’s father is from Benin. But maybe I misunderstood your comment about hair, skin tone, and Bobby Wood (whose father is African-American).
My athletes are better than your athletes is what I’m talking about. USA has premier athletes, not countries who don’t have a metal in the Olympics or even have a finalist in the sprints. 2 continents show up. I thought Cremaschi was Luna, you were correct on that. That’s not my point, you know it. You, Vacqui & 2tone always do this. Take a small part of someone’s post and debate that and not the persons point.
Missing Busio and Morris hurt the group. They needed some 8s that could progress the ball and Aidan’s bite was missing in defense. Mitrovic tried to deputize Booth and Gomez into 8/10s and it didn’t work. Gomez is more a second striker and Booth hasn’t played in MF the last few years since leaving Bayern was definitely rusty. You basically had 5 attackers and 5 defenders (with Tanner dropping between the CBs in possession) so I guess it’s not surprising we weren’t very connected. I don’t get the Gomez over Luna. Although I don’t think it would have made a difference last night. Talent wise this Japan team was far below France but coming off their Asian Cup win in May, they were organized and hard to play thru. We see this a lot in youth competitions the teams that are able to spend more time together tend to be more successful. Not being battle tested in qualifying may come back to hurt this group, although about half should be U20 vets.
I watched the game on YouTube The issue I have with Tomkinson why not come to MLS. Why waste time in the 4th div of England waiting for a championship side like Norwich to give you 1st team mins.
He’s probably not good enough. If you’re struggling for minutes in League 2 you’re probably coming back to USL or MLS Nextpro. He played 3 first team matches in 22/23 so they liked him once. According to Transfermkt his contract expires in July so we’ll see where he ends up. Transfermkt isn’t always right on contract lengths in lower divisions though either.